The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced today the launch of its Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP), a uniform investigatory system that will allow commercial motor carriers access to the crash and inspection records of all candidates seeking employment as commercial vehicle drivers.
The PSP is part of the FMCSA’s Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010), a program designed by the FMCSA that introduces an updated enforcement and compliance model aimed at improving the safety standards for the interstate operation of larger motor vehicles. The objective of CSA 2010 is to remove unsafe commercial vehicle drivers from the road, reducing crashes, injuries and fatalities that occur nationwide. CSA 2010, which is slated to go into effect later this summer, includes a major change from the current regulations that ties into the PSP: under CSA 2010, individual drivers as well as carriers will be subject to the safety regulations and investigations; the current system focuses solely on the carriers.
The new implementation of the PSP will undoubtedly foster an increased safety on the nation’s highways by allowing a carrier to fully evaluate a potential driver’s commitment to safety, enabling the carrier to weed out those who have a history of reckless driving behavior or safety violations.
